Welcome back to CREATE WITH LOVE, our Clear and Simple Stamps virtual Valentine’s (Craft) Day! We are sharing our final project for today and it’s the perfect gift for chocolate lovers…Project #7 – Box-o-Kisses Party Favor.

It’s perfectly acceptable to create a party for one, right? Cutely coordinated, chocolate candies filled to the brim makes it kind of hard for anyone to want to share this sweet treat! We just love how simple it is to dress up store bought candy and give it a bit of your own personal style. We can’t help but think how cute these would be for so many different occasions.

Cutely decorated candy…check. Adorable party favor box for packaging…check. How about the card? Not to worry, we’re making petite conversation hearts with a pocket for a tiny note card, which nestles perfectly into the Party Favor 11 box among all the kisses.

We hope you have enjoyed your Valentine’s Day! Sending you lots of xxxx and oooo…….

Welcome back to CREATE WITH LOVE, our Clear and Simple Stamps virtual Valentine’s (Craft) Day! We are moving right through our crafty agenda and hope that you are enjoying the mix of treats and favors for the holiday. Keep in mind that with a few minor tweaks in color or sentiments, each project can be recreated for any occasion, including Project #6 – the Be Mine Banner Treat Bag.

We adore this project! Maybe because as a child the family bike was pink with purple tires, or our complete obsession with the Bow Trio dies that are a one-piece cut and come standard with three different bow styles. The candy inside is an obvious giveaway, but the truth is we love to use dies to create unconventional packaging.

Would you believe us if we told you that we used a ziploc bag to create the banner pocket with the zipper top in tact? This post just might have you looking at everyday household items in a slightly different way!

Welcome back to CREATE WITH LOVE, our Clear and Simple Stamps virtual Valentine’s (Craft) Day! Since we’ve hit the afternoon hours on the East Coast, it’s about time to up the candy factor. Project #5 is the Love is Sweet Matchbox Favor – trust us, you are going to absolutely love how sweet it really is…

The Party Favor 16 first debuted in the pages of Toile, a holiday gift guide created by Damask Love. We so loved the colors used on the candle and matchbox favor that we wanted to take that inspiration and create a single serve candy bar treat using the same colors.

Valentine’s Day is pretty much carte blanche to completely go over the top in all things pink and red, no questions asked…come February 15th however, it will be a different story – new Spring colorways will more than likely take over. So with just a few hours left on our free pass, we are whipping up pink chocolates, die cutting pink hearts, and stamping pink flourish details.

And since it is Valentine’s Day, we added a “to/from” sentiment to make these favors a bit more personal. If you were having a wedding or anniversary you could stamp the event date here as an alternative.

Gift giving is an art. And it’s one that we are constantly adding new ideas to our collection of packaging possibilities. We’ve shared a few bags, tags, and gift cards in our Post Holiday Round-Up…and couldn’t resist sharing crafty gift box ideas for fun favors!

Life is like a box of chocolates…but life is a lot better when that box of chocolates is creatively handmade with a few Clear and Simple Stamps crafty supplies. Amber Kemp-Gerstel is sharing her creatively sweet project that is perfect for Valentine’s Day gifting.

We’ve all seen those heart-shaped chocolate gift boxes but they seem so impersonal. By creating your own box, you can add a personalized touch and fill it with homemade goodies.

With a few creative cuts of the Heart Doily die and a little Simple Adhesive, you can assemble a beautiful gift box that recipients will keep long after the candies have been eaten up. Join me at Damask Love for a tutorial on how-to make this heart-shaped box of chocolates on your own!

Are you loving this Heart Doily turned favor box as much as we do? We are completely smitten with this fun packaging idea!

We are a fan of color. Especially pretty pops of color, and two-tone gift boxes are a great way to have fun with color. For our two-tone boxes we chose A Blanc Check (white) as our first color and then varied the second color for each box to range in VIP Purple, I’m a Princess Pink, and Trendsetter Blue.

For these packages we used Party Favor 2, which comes with a die for the base and (2) die options for lids. Here we used only the base to create a slightly deeper box. In addition, we stamped diagonal stripes in color for a bit of added detail.

We wanted to make sure our lines matched up on the corners, so we used handy dandy sticky notes to create a guide.

HOW-TO: (1) We essentially masked off the base, with only the area we wanted to stamp showing. (2) We stamped the Designer Lines background on a diagonal in color across the open area. (3) Carefully rotate the sticky note mask to the next side panel. (4) Use the stamped off lines on the sticky notes as a guide for your next set of diagonal line stamping. (5) Repeat on all sides. (6) Remove sticky note mask and assemble using Simple Adhesive

Growing up we looked forward to seasonal candy. Halloween is candy corn, Christmas gives a nod to all things peppermint, and Valentine’s brings those adorably sweet, candy, conversation hearts. As a kid, we didn’t care how these assortment of sweets were delivered – just as long as we got the chance to eat as much of them as possible!

Now that we are “a little” older, we still love them…more so for looks than for the taste, and couldn’t wait to create our own version of packaging for gifting this sweet Valentine’s Day treat.

Party Favor 6 did all the heavy lifting. Once die cut, we simply die cut a heart from the back panel, which now serves as the front of the box. We did this so that the back flap would not show. Instead on the back we stamped a “to/from” image so that these favor boxes can also double as valentines!

We stamped the sentiment “heart candy” and heat embossed it in gold for a clean, modern design. The favor box was was assembled with Simple Adhesive, and a mini tag with a stamped sentiment was added with Gold/White Twine. The set All Wrapped up is

COLLECTION 9: the Holiday Collection

Start with the basics this holiday season. Treat yourself to a few new goodies from Collection 9, which are certain to make your gifts cherished treasures that won’t end up in the re-gifting pile!

Throughout the week, we will be sharing a variety of new product and lots of crafty inspiration for making your holidays the prettiest ever with our Make it Pretty: Holiday Collection.

This entire collection is filled with stamps and dies that make gift giving a true work of art. We LOVE to give gifts, receive gifts, open gifts, share gifts…you get the picture. This release is dedicated to gift giving. In each series, you will find so many useful options that will carry you well beyond the holiday season.

With each collection we always bring you back to the basics. These are those absolute “must haves” that find their way into your crafty stash, and have you wondering how you ever managed to craft without them!

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Oh My Stripes

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Create with an over-sized background and small icons in variegated stripes.

Dress up your holiday cards with a decorative alphabet for fun, custom sentiments. Mix and match colors to play up the energetic vibe of the wide letters and add geometric icons for dimension.

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Background Basics 4

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This set offers (8) build-able background bars in graphic design styles that you will reach for time and time again. Images build top to bottom and left to right to create fabulous and seamless patterns.

Each bar creates a seamless background that is repeatable on all four sides.

We can’t get enough of the Well Preserved Jars: Cocoa set. When we think of warming up in the winter, not only does hot cocoa come to mind, but so do cozy sweaters and quilted blankets. The beautiful, repeating patterns in Background Basics 4 is the perfect match for a winter treat!

If you love games, then this puzzle die will certainly get a workout in your craft room! In our family, we grew up on game night playing Scrabble, Yahtzee, Life, Monopoly, Uno, Crosswords, Where’s Waldo, Jenga, Trivial Pursuit…you name it, we played it!

But most of all we have lots of fond memories spent around figuring out jigsaw puzzles. This die cuts as one piece, with all the pieces still slightly connected. This will allow you the ability to stamp, color, sponge, emboss – etc without having to keep up with all the pieces.

Once your puzzle is complete, you can tuck it into an A2 Envelope or you can break apart the pieces by hand or with scissors and place it into pretty packaging.

Since we are such a puzzle friendly family, it was only fitting to create a keepsake from my wedding to share with the hubby. Married in the Dominican Republic on a pier over the ocean, this was one of our favorite photos that was die cut to create a puzzle.

A Clear Pillow Box holds all the pieces and a little polaroid tag with our picture. If you are wondering how the Polaroid Frame Die turned into the tag…be sure to check back this week – you will absolutely LOVE what’s to come!

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We hope you have enjoyed the Basics + Faves Series.
It is available for purchase [here]…

3-D Banners

Jennifer is certainly the queen of creating with supplies in an exciting and unexpected way. Her project today adds fun dimension and showcases how to make your creations truly jump right off the page!

We are sharing just a peek here. Be sure to stop by Jennifer’s blog to see the full step-by-step tutorial.

CSS DAILY DESIGNS: 25 Days of Inspiration

It’s been three years since the Clear and Simple Stamps Daily app first made an appearance on the crafting scene. Each day the app features a brand new project complete with instructions and photos. You can save to your favorites for quick reference, and search through previous months for even more inspiration.

In celebration of the CSS Daily App, we have 25 Days of inspiration. That’s right we are bringing the App to the blog! Each day the design team will feature fun projects and for an added bonus we will have a coordinating project on the app – it’s a great way to see even more fab inspiration using your Clear and Simple Stamps.

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Love App-eal

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Today’s project is brought to you by designer Jennifer Rzasa:

“Watercolor is currently a trend in papercrafting, and I really enjoyed incorporating it into my projects today! I used watercolor paints and a paintbrush, but you could also achieve a similar look with watercolor pencils or Copic markers. My app project uses the same technique – you could switch things up by painting a gradient of one color instead of the rainbow I chose. Experiment with it, and have fun!”

Visit with designer Jennifer Rzasa for details on how she created her lovely watercolor project…

Today we are die cutting Large Print Alphas to make inlaid sentiments. If you visited with us earlier in the week, we first showcased this fun technique during the “All About the Alphas” group project [here]…

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Love Letters

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We love the look of inlaid letters – it reminds us of piecing together a puzzle to reveal a pretty picture. In this case, we are piecing together letters and a fun heart to express our love for letters!

To create inlaid sentiments, you only need a few simple supplies: your dies, a pencil, and a bit of painter’s tape.

To start you will fully die cut each letter for your sentiment. Figure out the position and overlapping that you would like on each letter. Then take your pencil to trace the outer edge of each letter that overlaps. This will act as your cutting guide.

Once you have traced your letters, adhere the coordinating letter die to line up with the pencil line with painter’s tape.

Die cut the letter like normal to create your first piece.

Remove all of the pieces. Be sure to keep all of them, because some will fit back into openings such as the center of letters like “O”

Adhere the two letters together on the back side with regular tape and set aside.

Repeat the die cutting process until you have cut each letter that had pencil lines drawn on them, and adhere to the previous letter to form your word.

If your word is complete, you can add in even more inlaid designs by die cutting the finished word with a symbol, such as a heart, like we did here.

Inlaid die cutting is a fun technique that cuts down on the bulkiness of layers, but still keeps fun dimension. We’d love to see if you create using this technique…

Each of your crafting supplies serve a purpose. But isn’t a good feeling to find out that you can use an item in more than one way? We love to discover ways to expand our stash and get the most use out of an item. This week features ideas using clear blocks to create backgrounds and patterns. Join the design team, as we share projects created with the theme {Around the Block}. We’ve included a full list of participating CSS designers:

Stripe Appeal

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Today we are using our new, larger set of Clear Blocks (set B), to create a fun set of note cards featuring graduated stripes. The 2″ x 8″ block allows you plenty of space to line up more than one stripe image. For today’s project we chose (4) widths to line up one next to the other to create a striped backgrounds. By arranging the images on the clear block, stamping becomes very simple to create these fun backgrounds.

We chose an asymmetrical diagonal design for our project. You can easily change the look of your striped background, by simply rotating the clear block. You can create vertical, horizontal, diagonal, or fun mixes of stripe styles. Since the Create-a-Plaid: Large extends beyond the size of a standard A2 card base, you truly have a ton of fun options to create custom backgrounds.

For our project, we die cut a large heart using the Shapes: Hearts die, stamped a sweet sentiment from Best Bunnies and completed the embellishment with a soft Pink Felt (010) bow, die cut using the Bow Trio: Mini – a stripey, pastel card just in time for Easter!

We {heart} a good love story. And in every good love story there are the sweetest little love notes. This coming Valentine’s Day share a special note with those you love, to let them know you care.

Today we are excited for another fun Group Project. This week features ideas for sharing projects creating fun Valentine’s Day cards. Join the design team, as we share projects for creating {Love Notes}. We’ve included a full list of participating CSS designers:

Love Monsters

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Valentine’s Day is the perfect opportunity to show the sweet side of our adorable Little Uglies.

We took a simple color combination: My Style Blueprint, A Blanc Check, and Dare to be a Diva Red and combined it with Taglines: Uglies and the new Alpha Clear set to create an adorably ugly but oh so cute set of Love Notes.

First is Orville “Patch” Ugly, and Patch is our resident “Love Monster”. We love that Patch swaped out a traditional Taglines balloon for a super duper cute heart-shaped balloon. We teach you how to mask out the images to create this fun heart balloon {here}. We used the same process on this card with a smaller heart image from Hearts Plus.

Then we have, Leroy “Twix” Ugly sending out hugs and kisses. The fun Alpha Clear set coordinates perfectly with Twix’s “x” and “o” features.

And rounding out the trio is Clarence “Blink” Ugly. Blink is a bit shy and hides behind a romantic little message to “be mine”.

COLOR STORIES:

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Disclaimer

All printables and downloads shared are copyright Clear and Simple Stamps, LLC. You may download and use them for personal, non-commercial use only. Not for resale or distribution. You may share the free printables and downloads on your blog or other social media outlets (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, etc) as long as credit is given and linked back to Clear and Simple Stamps, LLC and its original post.
(Note: Print results may vary depending on the type of printer and/or paper)